Tuesday, January 31, 2017

UPDATED: Québec massacre: whodunnit... and WHY?

Since January 1st, 99% of the news -- not just in the Excited States of America but overseas -- seems to involve President Donald Trump. Since his election, the USA and the world -- the Western world at least -- is more polarized than ever before. The lamestream media and the self-righteous liberals want us to believe that it's all Mr Trump's fault, but the polarization began long BT (Before Trump). It arose out of the consequences of the failed social and foreign policies of the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations.

The American people elected President Trump because they were fed up with seeing the USA going downhill, so they bought into Mr Trump's promise to make America great again. So now, everything that happens, anywhere in the world, good or bad, happens because of something Trump did. Case in point: Sunday night's massacre of six Ahmadiyya Muslims (19 others were wounded or injured) in Québec City, the heart of French-speaking Canada.

When the news broke, we were told there were two shooters, and possibly a third who was the object of a search by a SWAT team. But two shooters for sure. I wrote "Two suspects have been arrested. We have not been told whether they are 'Muslim Canadians' or 'old stock Canadians'..." Turns out it was one of each! Québec city police identified the two men arrested following the deadly shooting as Alexandre Bissonnette and Mohamed Khadir.

"Mohamed Khadir" turned out to be Mohamed Belkhadir, a Canadian resident originally from Morocco. He had been shovelling snow when he heard gunshots; when they stopped he entered the mosque to call 911. "I saw the image of someone with a firearm, I didn't know it was police. I thought it was a shooter who'd returned," M Belkhadir told Radio Canada. Naturally he fled, but was caught and arrested outside the mosque within mere minutes. Yesterday afternoon he was released, after police confirmed he was a witness and not involved in the shooting.

Of course there was no question of racial profiling there, except perhaps on the part of folks like Ezra Levant and (ahem) your obedient servant. As I wrote in yesterday's update, a witness reported hearing shouts of "Allahu akbar!" I admit to jumping to the conclusion that the massacre was yet another episode in the Muslim civil war, an attack by Islamic extremists on moderate Ahmadiyya Muslims. How M Bissonnette fitted in was unclear, but it was possible (I thought) that he was yet another "homegrown terrorist", perhaps a radicalized convert to Muslim. Canada has had a couple of cases like that in the recent past.

Now the police say that there was only the one shooter -- Alexandre Bissonnette -- who they have charged with six counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder. What motivated this man to shoot up a mosque-full of innocent Muslims? The answer, according to the Canuck media this morning, is... wait for it... Donald Trump!

That's right, boys and girls! The official liberal party line is that President's Trump's "anti-Muslim" rhetoric and ban on travellers from seven predominantly Muslim countries has "emboldened" Islamophobes and "haters" like M Bissonnette to step up their "crusade" against the followers of Islam, "the religion of peace".

What we know about Alexandre Bissonnette is that he's a French-speaking "old stock Canadian", born and raised in la Belle Province. According to his Facebook page (since taken down), he is from Cap-Rouge, a suburb of Québec City. He was a student at Université Laval, and worked part-time in a call centre. He and his twin brother were renting an apartment near the Centre Culturel Islamique de Québec, where the shooting took place. A neighbour described M Bissonnette as very introverted, "a very closed-off young man."

A neighbour of M Bissonnette's parents called him "a child," adding "You couldn't find one more calm than that. He never did anything, he always kept to himself. We never heard of anything." Another neighbour, Réjean Bussiè​re, described M Bissonnette as "a young man who is extremely withdrawn." The Bissonnette brothers were not the kind to bother others, M Bussiè​re said, "but they were not social people."

Do you see anything there to suggest M Bissonnette is the sort of person who would take it into his head to go out and kill some Muslims? The suggestion that he's an Islamophobic nutbar was, in fact, planted by a group of activists calling themselves "Bienvenue aux réfugiés", whose mission is to welcome refugees -- especially Muslim refugees -- the Great No-longer-white North. On their Facebook page, they expressed "pain and anger" over the news, adding that the suspect "unfortunately known to several activists in Quebec City for his pro-Le Pen and anti-feminist positions at Laval University and on social networks."

Aha! Alexandre Bissonnette likes Marine Le Pen! And he doesn't like feminists! Indeed, according to police, his Facebook page showed M Bissonnette to be a follower of "several profiles that espouse right-wing ideologies". So there you have it. The proper conclusion to which we should now jump is that M Bissonnette is a Trumper -- secretly if not overtly -- and probably a member of a vast right-wing conspiracy to kill every Muslim North America, if not the world. No less an authority on right-wing conspiracies than J.K. Rowling tells us so.

UPDATE ADDED 5/2/17: Gavin McInnes gives his take on what really happened. He thinks the Muslim guy got a plea deal to negate the suggestion that there is a Muslim problem in Canada. Click here to see the video: running time 7:41.

Monday, January 30, 2017

UPDATE on Québec mosque massacre - "Allahu akbar!"

As the dawn comes up like thunder over the Citadelle and the Château Frontenac [Enough purple prose. Get on with it. Ed.] OK, here's what we know, in the cold light of dawn, about last night's terrorist attack in Québec City.

First, the body count. Six confirmed dead. 19 wounded or injured.

What kind of an attack was it? Canuck Prime Minister Trudeau called it "cowardly". Philippe Couillard, the Premier of Québec, went somewhat farther, calling the shooting "barbaric". He was also the first to mention the dreaded T-word -- "terrorist". Now several officials have called the massacre an "act of terrorism". But for reasons of political correctness they are leaving out the adjective "Islamic". All they will say is that the motive of the shooters is unclear.

Two suspects have been arrested. They are said to be "residents", which is the Canadian term for people who are in their country but not citizens. Like students from overseas. Or "refugees". Or immigrants who couldn't be bothered taking out Canadian citizenship. One of the "residents" is reported (but not confirmed) to be "of Moroccan origin". Uh-oh.

Walt is waiting to see how the Liberal governments of Canada and Québec are going to spin this one. If the murderers turn out to be, errr, Muslims (as I suggested last night), they're going to have a hard time blaming this on racist white guys, Islamophobia or Donald Trump. I will withhold further comment until I have official statements to ridicule.

UPDATE OF THE UPDATE!!! This just in from Radio Canada (the French part of the CBC).
"A witness who asked to remain anonymous told Radio-Canada that two masked individuals entered the mosque. 'It seemed to me that they had a Québécois accent. They started to fire, and as they shot, they yelled, 'Allahu akbar!'"

Québec city police identified the two men arrested following the deadly shooting as Alexandre Bissonnette and... wait for it... Mohamed Khadir. The gendarmes are investigating the possibility that the two may have been students at nearby Laval University.

So... Islamic terrorists... Looks like Walt was the first to suggest the possibility, at the end of last night's post. Lifetime pct .991. The question now: Are they home-grown or imported? If that latter, President Trump's "drastic" immigration ban starts to look sensible, doesn't it!

The question arises: why would Islamic terrorists attack a Mosque? Isn't that brother attacking brother? My research into the CCIQ (Islamic Cultural Centre of Québec) has been made difficult by the fact that their website (reported by Google as possibly hacked) has now been taken down. But it looks to me as if the CCIQ was a community of Ahmadiya Muslims. The Ahmadiyas are regarded by other Muslims, particularly the ultra-orthodox Sunnis, as heretical. They have been attacked by other Muslims in the UK and elsewhere. So my guess is that what has happened is that the Muslim civil war has come to Canada. As long as that country's Liberal government continues to hold the doors wide open, last night's attack would seem to be only the beginning.

Sunday, January 29, 2017

"We love our Muslim neighbours"... don't we? Maybe not in Québec?

Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of All Canuckistan, never tires of saying how much Canadians love all the Muslims who are flooding into their country -- especially the 1000s of refugees from Syria on whom millions of beaverbucks are being spent -- and what a great contribution "Muslim Canadians" are making to the diversity which is Canada's strength, yada yada yada.

Walt suspects that Junior actually believes this liberal claptrap, tone-deaf as he is to the views of ordinary Canadians, as read (when the censors allow) in the comments section so the Groan and Wail and the CBC News website. Just this weekend, when President Trump announced that the Paranoid States of America would not be taking any more Syrian refugees, and would not be issuing visas to citizens of Syria and six other Middle Eastern sandpits, M Trudeau took to the airwaves and the Twitterverse to say that all "refugees" are welcome in Canada, and anyone inconvenienced by the American "Muslim ban" can get temporary resident status in Canada, just for the asking. Yada yada yada.

The usual suspects are demonstrating in the streets of Toronto (of course) and Mississauga (ditto), holding up signs saying "We love our Muslim neighbours!" However, no such demonstrations or signs were to be seen in Québec City, the heart of francophone [= French-speaking. Ed.] Canada. It was there, a couple of years ago, that the previous provincial government, proposed a Charter of Québec values which would have banned the wearing of Islamic headgear. And it was there, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, that a pig's head was left on the doorstep of the Islamic Cultural Centre [= mosque. Ed.] in suburban Sainte-Foy.

Now comes news that shots were fired tonight inside the same mosque, leaving several people dead and more wounded. Québec City police say that a few dozen people, mostly men, were gathered at the mosque for evening prayers when shooting broke out. The director of the centre said at least five people were killed, but that information has not been confirmed by police. Two suspects have been arrested. We have not been told whether they are "Muslim Canadians" or "old stock Canadians", but it couldn't be the latter, eh, because M Trudeau keeps saying "We love our Muslims!"

À lire: "Tuerie dans une mosquée à Québec: plusieurs morts", La Presse, 29/1/17.

VIDEO: Return of the evil snowmen!

Almost three years ago, Walt awarded the coveted WWW Excellence in Advertising Award (known as a "Wally") to the agency which created "Winter Warrior" -- that's the official title but I like "Evil Snowmen" better -- for Nissan Canada. The spot featured menacing snowmen (or snowwomen -- hard to tell the difference) trying to stop a Nissan Rogue, and failing of course. After over 3,000,000 hits the ad was taken off YouTube, but Ed. has found a recent repost, which you can view by clicking here.

After the mild winters of 2015 and 2016, the evil snowmen are back! They look a bit cuter this time -- less threatening to younger viewers, perhaps -- but they're still trying to stop that Rogue, and still failing... left out in the cold, as it were. Enjoy.



Note from Ed.: No, we don't get a dime from Nissan or the ad agency or even YouTube for posting this. We just like it. That's all.

UPDATED: Trump keeps his promises; panic ensues

Things have moved so fast in the first full week of Donald Trump's presidency that it's been hard for me to keep up. [Nothing to do with the Chinese New Year celebrations, then? Ed.] Across the Excited States of America and around the world, supporters and haters of The Donald [Ed., can we still call him that?] are expressing surprise (the supporters) and horror (the haters) that President Trump has moved immediately to keep the promises he made during the late election campaign. A politician who does what he said he'd do? AMAZING!

Agent 3 tells me that President Trump has done more in one week that Canada's new(ish) prime minister did in his first year. That would be because Mr Trump thinks there has been enough talk, and now it's time for action, whereas M Trudeau believes in more "conversations" -- including a "face the music tour" last week -- and no action apart from giving taxpayers' money to "disadvantaged minorities" and foreigners.

Everything President Trump has done, without exception, has aroused the ire of the usual suspects -- snowflakes, SJWs, eco-wienies, lawyers, activists and Democratic politicians. The liberals are revolting, and I mean that sincerely. "Spontaneous protests" have broken out in the streets of America's "sanctuary cities", in airports, and in the wilderness of North Dakota.

The ageing hippies camping out on private property in Dakota are incensed by President Trump's decision to greenlight the Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil pipelines. That decision has been warmly applauded by the folks in the oil patch, especially those north of the world's longest (somewhat) undefended border. Good time to buy Canadian oil stocks... and Transcanada Pipeline. (You're welcome.) Americans should be glad too. Why import oil from the sand niggers and terrorists when you can get it from the friendly frostbacks up north?

The protests raging today in the airports and sanctuary cities have been sparked by President Trump's executive order, announced on Friday, putting a four-month hold on the admission of "refugees" into the United States. The same order temporarily bars travellers from Syria and six other predominantly Muslim countries -- Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Iran and Iraq. Those, of course, are the sandpits from which Islamic terrorists come, in the guise of refugees and asylum-seekers, to wreak havoc in Western countries and kill as many "Christians" as they can, by whatever means possible.

The new restrictions on immigrants and refugees also apply to permanent residents who have passports from the seven Muslim countries. Any green card holders who were outside the country when the order took effect will have to be cleared back into the United States on a case-by-case basis. Google ordered its foreign Muslim employees to get back to the USA right sharpish, but several were caught in the air and detained on arrival at JFK and other airports. Chaos at the airport terminals ensured, and immigration lawyers, activists and Democratic politicians immediate organized protests and started knocking on judges' doors to help followers of the Prophet get back into the country.


At the break of dawn today, the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement saying they plan on continuing to "enforce all of the president's executive orders in a manner that ensures the safety and security of the American people." The DHS was responding to a temporary order granted Saturday night by a New York judge staying the operation of the White House order, and releasing the dozen or so Muslims who were being held at JFK. "The president's executive orders remain in place," said the DHS statement. "Prohibited travel will remain prohibited, and the US government retains its right to revoke visas at any time if required for national security or public safety."

America's staunch allies, the friendly frostbacks referred to above, immediately announced that refugees and any other travellers barred from entering the USA would be welcome in Canada... provided of course that they aren't Christians or conservatives or racists or oilpersons. Starting tomorrow, all travellers crossing the border or arriving at Canadian airports will be given a "liberal values" test to determine their willingness to embrace diversity... and vote Liberal.

Footnote: The Toronto Sun ran a poll yesterday asking its readers if they approved of President Trump's executive order banning Muslims from entering the USA. The results so far: YES - 55%; NO - 33%; not sure - 12%. You may think that Prime Minister Selfie is tone-deaf to the sentiments of ordinary Canadians. But it's not his fault. He and his liberal cronies don't read the Toronto Sun. They do read comments on the CBC website, but, alas, the CBC isn't allowing comments on any stories about immigration and "refugees". Wonder why...

FOOTNOTE ADDED 30/1/17: The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which considers itself the collective voice of the Muslim world, has 57 member states. President Trump's travel ban affects citizens of only seven (7) of them. The governments of Iran and Iraq, to name two, have reacted with predictable fury. But from the leaders of the other 57... crickets! In the heart of the Muslim world -- Cairo (Egypt) and Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), the executive order has met with a conspicuous silence.

King Salman of Saudi Arabia, home of Islam's holiest sites, spoke to President Trump by telephone on Sunday but made no public comment. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, whose capital, Cairo, is a traditional seat of Islamic scholarship, said nothing. What are we to make of this silence? Could it be that these leaders agree that a ban on travellers from terrorism-infected states is a good idea? Or are they merely afraid that their nations may be next?

Further reading: "In Face of Trump's Order, Some Muslim Nations Are Conspicuously Silent", New York Times, 29/1/17.

Friday, January 27, 2017

恭喜发财!


Walt, Len [and Ed.! Ed.]wish all our Chinese friends and readers
a happy and prosperous
Year of the Rooster!


Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Didn't anyone else hear Trump call out Islamic terrorists?

For eight years, I waited for Barack Hussein Obama and/or his sometime Secretary of State and would-be successor Hellery Clinton to utter the words "Islamic" and "terrorism"/"terrorists" in the same sentence. It never happened. Then, last Friday, in his inaugural address, PresidentTrump -- how sweet it is! -- said "We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the earth."

Cazart! "Islamic terrorism!" Is that what's been going on in Orlando and San Bernardino, not to mention Nice, Paris, Brussels, Berlin and other Western cities? [And don't forget Peshawar, Kabul, Baghdad, Palmyra and other Middle Eastern shitholes! Ed.] You mean these killers were fanatical followers of the Prophet Mohammed? Jihadis bent on the extermination of Christians and Jews? Why were we not told?!

In the daze of President 0 and other apostles of "diversity", "tolerance" and "inclusion", the I-word was never mentioned in the same breath as "terrorism" or "terrorists", because, you know, these misguided "lone wolves" were beset by their own individual demons, acting on their own and not as part of any ISIS or other Muslim extremist conspiracy. And they certainly didn't represent the majority of Muslims (the former Prez kept assuring us) because, you know, Islam is "the religion of peace". NOT!

For eight years, President 0 and Shrillery Clinton and John Kerry bent over backwards to make sure Islamists inside and outside the Paranoid States of America wouldn’t get upset and unleash new terrorist attacks... which they did anyway. Now, finally, the appeasers are gone and the Western world -- or the American part of it at least -- has a new leader who's unafraid to name the elephant in the room. Which he did... just like that!

I would have thought that President Trump's declaration of war on the Islamic terrorists would have been front-page news in the USA and around the world. But it wasn't. None of the media I checked -- including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Times of London, ABC, BBC, CBC, NBC right down to ZBC [There is such a broadcaster. Ed.] -- led with President Trump's promise of "eradicating Islamic terrorism from the face of the earth". Amazing... or maybe not.

The American media, in particular, were obsessed with numbers -- how many turned out for the Trump inauguration, who had the larger approval rating, and non-news like that. Dozens of column inches and hours of video were given to interviews with people who attended or witnessed the inauguration. There was wall-to-wall coverage of the vandals and miscreants who showed up to "protest" and scream in rage at hearing Mr Trump introduced as "President of the United States". As for the subject of Islamic terrorism, not one word did I read or hear.

On Saturday, President Trump told staffers at the CIA, "We have to get rid of ISIS. We have to get rid of ISIS. We have no choice. Radical Islamic terrorism -- and I said it yesterday -- has to be eradicated. Just off the face of the Earth. This is evil. This is evil." Those remarks were similarly under-reported, or not reported at all.

What's with the lamestream media? Did they not get the memo? It's OK, now, to stop pretending that we are all brothers, and that mutual respect and tolerance of diversity are the answers to the problems of the world in general and the Middle East in particular. It's no longer necessary, in the interest of political correctness, to downplay the threat of Islamic terrorism. It's time, now, to stand up to the Muslim extremists and do whatever it takes to end their threat to our religion, our society and our way of life! Report that, you pussies!

Further viewing
: Click here to see Michael Matt's take on the inauguration, in the latest video from The Remnant.

VIDEO: Planned Parenthood doesn't do prenatal care, only abortions

One of the organizations heavily invested in the Wimmins March on Washington was Planned Parenthood. PP campaigned hard for Hellery, and against those who called for the defunding of their abortion clinics. "We provide many services for pregnant women," they shrilled, "including cancer screening, family planning and prenatal care."

Live Action, a pro-life group, decided to put them to the test. They made phone calls to 97 Planned Parenthood clinics across the USA. All but five of them turned away women who asked for prenatal care. A typical clinic staffer told one caller, "Planned Parenthood offers abortions, so they don’t offer prenatal care."

Here's a compilation of some of the phone calls. Hear the truth from the mouths of the baby-killers.



FOOTNOTE
: A new national poll, sponsored by the Knights of Columbus and conducted by Marist, reveals that a majority of the 2729 American adults surveyed are in favour of "significant restrictions" on abortion. A slim majority (52%) of respondents identified themselves as "pro-choice"; 42% say they are pro-life. But when asked more specific questions, solid majorities supported legal restrictions on the "procedure". 91% of those who supported Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy said they wanted restrictions on abortion. Surprisingly, a majority (55%) of Hellery Clinton’s supporters had the same opinion.

Further viewing
: Click here to see Michael Matt's take on the inauguration, in the latest video from The Remnant. Mr Matt says the Wimmin's March and all the other leftie snowflake demonstrations are really all about sex and abortion. Period.

Monday, January 23, 2017

VIDEO: British cops taser their own race relations adviser

Here's a great item from this weekend's police blotter, the coppers in question being the Avon & Somerset police, who "serve and protect" the city of Bristol, in southwestern England. Check out this video of the Peelers subduing a "dangerous" black man.



The man on the wrong end of the Taser is Judah Adunbi, aged 63. The location of the video is the front gate to Mr Adunbi's home. As he was trying to enter his own property, the police, apparently mistaking him for a wanted man, asked Mr Adunbi for his ID, which he refused to give, saying "I've done no wrong. Leave me alone."

That seemed to be a trigger -- pun intended -- for the boy and girl in blue, who let him have it. Mr Adunbi told the Guardian, "I felt that was it. Because of the way I fell back. The way I fell backward on the back of my head. I was just paralyzed. I thought that was it. I thought they were taking my life."

After discharging the Taser, one of the officers can be heard yelling, "Taser, Taser, Taser. You've been Tasered. All right?"
Mr Adunbi's neighbour can be heard protesting, although an officer tells him, "He was trying to fight us." That's what cops always say, that the victim was "resisting arrest" or "threatening us" or "appeared to be holding a weapon". Obviously the neighbour filming the incident missed that part.

Now here's the funny part. The Guardian reports that Mr Adunbi was a race relations adviser -- a member of Bristol's independent advisory group, designed to forge links between police and the community! How shocking! [No more electric jokes, please. Ed.] Walt thinks Mr Adunbi should count himself lucky that he lives in the UK. If this had happened in the USA, he would doubtless have been a deceased race relations adviser.

Sunday, January 22, 2017

VIDEO: Catholics! Into the new catacombs! Keep the Faith!


Yes, it's a short (2:14) promo for Remnant TV, which Walt recommends highly. Leaving that aside, the message is sound and urgent. The Catholic Faith is in danger from heretics and apostates at the highest levels within the Roman Catholic Church. It's time for those who believe what the Church always taught -- up until Vatican II -- to "circle the wagons", or, to use a more religious turn of phrase, go once more into the catacombs, there to keep alive the True Faith as revealed to us by Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Saturday, January 21, 2017

Why Margaret Wente didn't join the Wimmin's March

Ed. here. Walt left on Wednesday to go to the nation's capital for the inauguration of President Donald Trump. (Dontcha love that phrase? We do!) But when he got to Richmond he found it strangely quiet, almost empty. I hope to set him straight over the weekend, and hope for some comments on Monday. Watch this space.

Meanwhile, here's an excerpt from "Don't set your hair on fire. It won't help", by Margaret Wente, an American ex-pat now living in Canada. If you read the whole thing, you'll learn that Ms Wente doesn't like President Trump, but is not joining the Wimmin's March on Washington because, IHHO, there's no point to it, or any of the other hysterical reaction we're hearing and seeing this weekend.

Why are we so irrational about Donald Trump? Well, we’re tribal, and we’ve decided he is Moloch. (By “we,” I mean the usual left-liberal-academic-media-urban professional crowd who don’t own pickup trucks.) Also, we have no sense of perspective. Most of us who live in North America have no idea what bad leaders or bad times are truly like. We don’t know any history, either. Populist backlashes are nothing new. According to the historian Niall Ferguson, the five ingredients for a backlash are a rise in immigration, a rise in inequality, a perception of corruption at the top, a major financial crisis, and a demagogue to light the spark. The U.S. scores a Bingo. Populism, he points out, is usually part of a global phenomenon. Its targets are typically immigration, free trade and high finance. Populists are more interested in trade wars than shooting wars. So Mr. Trump is nothing new in history. What’s new is his unequalled power to shake the global order.

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Burqas banned in... you'll never guess!

Just saw, on the Agence France Press website, what promises to be the most incredible story of the month, if not the entire year. After considerable debate, a national government has banned the importation and sale of burqas. Completely. In their entire country. For those who don't know what a burqa is, it's the ultra-Islamic garment for women that covers the entire body, from the top of the head right down to the ground. That includes the face, only a small "window" being left (albeit screened) so the wearer can see where she (or he) is going.


The country is... this is the incredible part... Morocco! Morocco has a population of nearly 34 million people, almost as big as Canada. 99% of Moroccans are Muslims, unlike Canada where only 98% are Muslims. [Ed., please check those numbers.] So why, you may ask, would the government of a predominantly Muslim country risk offending so many voters by proscribing the ultimate Islamic fashions? Walt will explain.

First of all, Morocco is a monarchy, and elections are not quite as free and fair as they are in, say, Cook County IL. Secondly, in Muslim countries, freedom of religion and freedom of expression aren't guaranteed by law. Quite the opposite, in fact. Thirdly, and most important, the Moroccan government is worried about security. It's that "she (or he)" in the first paragraph that prompted the burqa ban.

You can't tell what's under the damn things. It could be a sultry voluptuous Muslim woman, like the ones you see in the streets of Kabul every day. Or it could be a Mohammed with a beard and an AK-47. Or either of them, with half a dozen sticks of dynamite strapped to his/her torso. See "A good reason to ban the burqa", WWW 4/11/13.

The AFP story quotes a spokesthingy for the Moroccan Ministry of the Interior as saying "We have taken the step of completely banning the import, manufacture and marketing of this garment in all the cities and towns of the kingdom, since bandits have repeatedly used this garment to perpetrate their crimes." ("Bandits" is Arabic for "terrorists".)

In fact, not that many Moroccan women wear the burqa. Most of them prefer the hijab, a headscarf that doesn't cover the face. The niqab, which leaves the area around the eyes uncovered, is worn in Salafist circles and in more conservative regions in the north, from where 1000s of jihadists have gone to fight in Syria and Iraq. A Salafist preacher condemned "the Satan-worshippers" and "atheists serving the interests of the Jews" who, he said, were behind the burqa ban.

So there you have it. A 99% Muslim country bans the burqa to deter "bandits" or "terrorists" or whatever you want to call them. What are the chances of that happening in North America? In the USA (as of January 21st), chances are slim. In Justin Trudeau's Not-so-Great, Not-so-white North (see previous post), the chances are... none at all.

Further reading: Still not sure about the difference between the burqa, the niqab and the hijab? Read "Hijab, niqab, burqa -- what's the difference?", [Great title! Ed.] WWW 28/7/10.

Sunday, January 15, 2017

VIDEO: Gavin McInnes calls Canada "a fucking mess"

A couple of readers from Canuckistan have written to complain that Walt spent a good part of 2016 -- especially the summer and fall -- talking about American politics and gloating over the election of Donald Trump. Why, they ask, don't we say something about the arch-SJW who's been (allegedly) running Canada for the last year? That would be Justin Trudeau, son of Pierre himself, who opened the floodgates to Third World immigration and put Canada on the road to "social democracy" from which it has never recovered.

Point taken! I won't argue that what The Donald does as leader of the most powerful nation on earth matters more to the world than what Shiny Pony does in his little pink dictatorship. No. I just needed to find words to express my incredulity that Canada's leader has suddenly emerged as the self-proclaimed champion of multiculturalism and globalism, at a time when the people of every Western country (except Canada) are rising up against those insane concepts.

Fortunately for you, dear reader, my attention has just been drawn to a video commentary by our old friend Gavin McInnes shortly after the election of M Trudeau in October of 2015. Mr McInnes is actually a Canadian (although he kind of downplays his nationality), so who better to tell Canadians their country is a paradigm of multiculturalism run amok, and that basically they're fucked. Running time: 5:14.



Footnote from Ed.: A churlish person has suggested that Walt is becoming lazy, posting more and more videos as opposed to text. Dear person, this is the Internet! I've been tracking the readership of every WWW post since the beginning way back in 2009. (That's a long time by blog standards.) I conclude that people want to watch and listen, not read. We are governing ourselves accordingly.

Friday, January 13, 2017

VIDEO: Ask a silly question...

Every once in a while, Ed. reminds me that we need to have some funny stuff now and then, not just rants about the usual subjects. Most of the news out of North America and Europe makes my blood boil, so it's good to find the occasional tidbit from elsewhere to put a smile on my grumpy puss. Here's a video clip from Australia that has done the trick for this week. They speak with Aussie accents, so listen carefully.



If you didn't quite get it, the young lady, Erica O'Donnell, was jogging in a Melbourne park when Seven Network's Michael Scanlan attempted to ask her a question about exercise practices. First he asked for her name, which she gave him.
Then he added, "Can you spell first and last?" Ms -O'Donnell replied, "F-I-R-S-T, L-A-S-T."
As the Aussies say... too right! Said Mr Scanlan, "You know, in a decade, no-one has done that."

Thursday, January 12, 2017

VIDEO: "Latest Research on Race", Prof. Philippe Rushton

In the last paragraph of "Educational achievement: race makes a difference", I provided a link to this video, featuring the late Professor Philippe Rushton. Speaking frankly about the differences between the races nearly cost Dr Rushton his job at the University of Western Ontario. In this video (running time 57 minutes, including Q&A), he speaks about the intellectual and physical differences between whites, blacks and Asians. Watch it only if you can handle the truth!

Educational achievement: race makes a difference

To place the data shown in this chart in context, we need to go back 21 years, to the publication of Race, Evolution and Behavior, by John Philippe Rushton (3/12/43 to 2-10/12), a British-born professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario. Professor Rushton became known to the public during the 1980s and 1990s for his research on race and intelligence, race and crime, and other apparent racial variations. He was a proponent of the idea that racial differences in IQ are partially related to genetic inheritance.

Professor Rushton studied the size of brains and genitalia, the effects of inbreeding depression on IQ, and the effects of race-mixing. He concluded that genetic factors make blacks less intelligent, less sexually restrained and less law-abiding than Asians and whites.
Putting it even more plainly, he contended that the yellow people -- my word, not his -- are the most intelligent and evolved -- and blacks the least, with whites somewhere in the middle. Conversely, blacks are the strongest and most athletic, east Asians the least, with whites again in the middle.

For his pains, Dr Rushton was vilified by the usual suspects, and held onto his position at the university only because he was tenured. Yet what he was saying is what most people believe, even today. It's just that we keep it to ourselves for reasons of political correctness, for fear of the thought police.

Fast forward to 2015, to the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study -- tests conducted in 57 countries to measure the educational attainment of 580,000 students. In "Bottom of the class", in this week's Economist, the table at the left is presented as part of an analysis of the defects of the educational system of South Africa, which ranked 75th out of 76 countries evaluated in the TIMSS.

The reasons advanced for the South Africans' poor test scores are many and various: poverty, poor teachers, corruption, and of course the horrible apartheid system under which South Africa was, until the mid-1990s, the most prosperous of all the countries of sub-Saharan Africa. There is one reason the writer fails to mention -- race.

Look at the chart. Nine countries are compared. In the top three countries -- Singapore, South Korea and Japan -- the students are predominantly "yellow" -- east Asian. In the bottom three countries -- Botswana, Morocco and South Africa -- the students are predominantly brown or black, African or Middle Eastern. Let's not rehash the old argument about whether Arabs are a separate race or a subset of Caucasians who got darker in the sun. They're non-white and non-yellow. And their test scores are right down there with the sub-Saharan blacks. The countires that are (or used to be) white -- Australia, Sweden and Italy -- are in the middle. In other words, the TIMSS results conform right down the line to the observations of Professor Rushton.

Click here to see "Latest Research on Race", a video of Professor Rushton speaking to an American Renaissance conference in 2000. Running time 57 minutes. Warning: The speech contains politically incorrect phrases like "retarded"! Prof. Rushton starts off by speaking about what he observed on a visit to South Africa. The first slide is an IQ chart. The lowest IQ ever found in the world, he says, is that of African blacks -- even lower than that of American blacks. Snowflakes and SJWs don't believe in IQ testing. Nothing to do with what the tests reveal, of course. If you can't stand the truth, don't watch this!

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Signs of life seen in Seattle

From the other side of the world, Agent 29 sends us something à propos, put together by the Little Old Signmaker at Seattle Propane, which you'll find at Wallingford Chevron. Big smile, everyone!

Saturday, January 7, 2017

VIDEO: Michael Matt on the hippification of the Catholic Church

I was listening, the other day, to Gavin McInnes chatting with Stefan Molyneux about the attack on Christmas and other seasonal topics. I hadn't realized until now that Mr McInnes is a practising Catholic. He is no traditionalist, it seems, but from what he says about the sickness in today's Church, I gather that he is distressed by the distortion of the Faith -- dare we say heresy or apostasy? -- manifest in the mainstream Church. He is not alone.

Here's a new video from The Remnant in which Michael Matt recounts his experience at a recent Novus Ordo "Gathering Rite". That leads him to ask a lot of very good questions, such as: What is neo-Catholicism? What is the New Mass? Why are Jimmy Fallon, Bill Murray, Sting and Bianca Jagger readily admitting that which the neo-Catholics insist on denying: The Catholic Church is going through an all-out revolution that kicked into high gear at the Second Vatican Council. If you're one of the millions who have left the Church because of what the liberals, the progressives and the hippies have made of it, listen up, because Michael Matt is speaking for you!

Poisoned fruits of American meddling in the Muslim civil wars

Before we get to Esteban Santiago and yesterday's "incident" in Fort Lauderdale, let me tell you (since the American lamestream media can't be bothered with this little story) about the late Lionel Desmond, pictured below with his late wife and late daughter.

Mr Desmond was an "African-Canadian" who served with the Canadian Army in the American-led invasion of Afghanistan. On Tuesday night he shot his wife, daughter and mother in their home in rural Nova Scotia, before turning his gun on himself.

The Mounties refused to give specifics about the two guns seized at the home or Mr Desmond's mental health. "Those are details that we're not able to release at this time and, of course, a person's medical condition is protected information," said Cpl. Jennifer Clarke. However, family members and friends have said he suffered from PTSD.

PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder. In a rant about the sanitization of English, George Carlin said PTSD is what we called "combat fatigue" in World War II and "shell shock" in World War I. Putting it another way, something that happened to Mr Desmond in Afghanistan -- something he saw or heard or did -- made him crazy.

Lionel Desmond had no business being in Afghanistan. He was sent there by the Canadian government to assure the US government that Canada was standing shoulder to shoulder with America in their quest to defeat terrorism and bring democracy and the American way of life Army to the benighted Muslims. The invasion of Afghanistan was ill-conceived and ill-executed. The price of intervention is still being paid not just by "the natives" but by 1000s of American, British and Canadian servicemen (or "servicepersons", if you like) and their families. The Desmonds are four more casualties of the Muslim civil war.

Now we come to Esteban Santiago, who yesterday added another five dead and eight wounded to the list of casualties. We know how that turned out. Mr Santiago is a Hispanic American, and, the authorities say, a decorated veteran of the American invasion of Iraq. He served from 2007 to 2016 in the Puerto Rico National Guard and Alaska National Guard including a deployment to Iraq from 2010 to 2011. He received half a dozen medals before being transferred to the inactive ready reserve in August of 2015.

Since returning from Iraq, Mr Santiago served in the Army Reserves and the Alaska National Guard in Anchorage. He was serving as a combat engineer in the Guard before his discharge for "unsatisfactory performance," according to spokesthingy Lt. Col. Candis Olmstead. His military rank upon discharge was E3 (Private First Class), and he worked one weekend a month with an additional 15 days of training yearly. Lt. Col. Olmstead would not elaborate on his discharge, but the Pentagon said he went AWOL several times and was demoted and discharged.

Last November, Mr Santiago turned up at an FBI office in Anchorage, behaving erratically. He told the Feds the government was controlling his mind and telling him to go and fight for ISIS. Did this alarm them? Apparently not, for they turned him over to local police, who took him to a medical facility for a mental health evaluation. His brother, Bryan Santiago, told AP that his brother's girlfriend had recently called the family to alert them to his treatment.

Bryan Santiago said his brother never spoke to him directly about his medical issues. "We haven't talked for the past three weeks," he said. "That's a bit unusual... I'm in shock. He was a serious person... He was a normal person." Esteban Santiago's aunt in Union City New Jersey didn't see it that way. Maria Ruiz Rivera told the press the suspect in the Fort Lauderdale massacre had recently become a father and was "struggling" after a tour of duty in Iraq. "It was like he lost his mind," Ms Ruiz said in Spanish. "He said he saw things."

Esteban Santiago is in custody in Fort Lauderdale, helping authorities with their investigation, as the saying goes. Walt assumes they're asking him why he packed an assault rifle -- literally -- unpacked it in the baggage claim area of FLL, calmly loaded it and fired randomly into a crowd of travellers. What happened to him in Iraq? What things did he see that unhinged him so? What did the voices he heard say to him? Was he "radicalized"... or just plain crazy?

Whatever happened to Mr Santiago, the fact remains that there was no reason for him to be in Iraq other than the total and utter failure of American foreign policy through the administrations four (4) presidents. Can we expect any change when Donald Trump takes office in less than two weeks? Let's hope so... but don't count on it. (Lifetime pct .987.)

Friday, January 6, 2017

When you're riding a dead horse...

One of Walt's agents thinks Niagara Falls is a pretty funny place. He passes along this little tidbit from the Niagara Falls Reporter.

The tribal wisdom of the Senecas, passed on from generation to generation, says that; “When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.”

However, in Niagara Falls city government, more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:

  1. Appointing a committee to study the horse
  2. Lowering standards so that dead horses are not disposed of
  3. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired
  4. Telling everyone that we’ve always ridden our horses this way
  5. Hiring contractors to resuscitate the dead horse
  6. Hiring outside consultants to put together a training program for support staff to work better with the dead horse
  7. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase dead horse’s performance
  8. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance
  9. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed , it is less costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the city’s budget than do some other horses
  10. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.

The unfunny thing is that misgovernment is not exclusive to Niagara Falls or to municipal government. You can substitute any municipality or state/province or country and still be right on.

Note from Ed.: There may be a word missing from No. 10. Should read "dead horse's ass", surely.

The Muslim invasion of Canada has begun (but not where you think)

No, we're not talking about the south Asian majority cities of Brampton and Mississauga, Ontario. According to the Canadian Broadcorping Castration (CBC), hundreds of African refugees and asylum-seekers have found the weak spot in the Canadian border, at Emerson, Manitoba, about 100 miles south of Winterpeg, which is to say 100 miles from nowhere.


The Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) -- that's what the polite Canucks call the border patrol -- told the CBC that 100s of people have entered Canada illegally near the Emerson border crossing, in search of refuge. The CBC started investigating following a report earlier this week that two "refugees" from Ghana were hospitalized in Winnipeg after getting bitten by ole Jack Frost after getting lost near the border on the morning of Christmas Eve.

Those two weren't the only ones. The CBSA has confirmed at least 398 refugee claimants have tried to get over the Emerson border illegally between April 2013 and November 2016. They say "at least" because the ones they refer to are just the ones who got caught! Those who are stupid or unlucky enough to be intercepted by the RCMP are taken to the Emerson border crossing, where, instead of being pushed back into the USA, they're allowed to make a refugee claim!

The CBSA spokesthingy interviewed by the CBC added that the majority of claimants entering near Emerson are from Somalia. Almost all Somalis are Muslims. Some of them are Islamic terrorists, sworn to kill us infidels. There are 1000s of Somali "refugees" in the USA, where they have established ghettos in the Minneapolis-St Paul are. Some of them... OK, a lot of them... are in the USA illegally, and now that The Donald is threatening to round them up, they're fleeing to Canada, where they know the Liberal government of PET Jr. will welcome them with open arms and open chequebooks.

The CBSA declined to comment when asked by CBC how hundreds of illegal claimants could be making their way into Canada. The agency said it is only responsible for designated border crossings and not the areas that surround them. Talk to the Mounties, the CBSA said, because patrolling the surrounding area is their job. How they expect Mounties to get their men -- especially in the dark when it's hard to see them -- was not made clear.

Similarly left unclear was the question of how many of these bogus "refugee" claimants were able to stay in Canada. After paperwork is filled out and sealed with red tape, the asylum-seeker wannabes have their photos taken -- that's when they smile -- and then are released and given dates, sometimes a year or more hence, for hearings by the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board. How many claims are allowed, how many are refused, and how many of the potential terrorists are deported? All that information is confidential. Privacy, you know. Human rights. Mustn't encourage Islamophobia. Canadians have nothing to fear... eh??!!

Thursday, January 5, 2017

VIDEO: Top 10 leftie/snowflake/SJW moments of 2016

We haven't had a Gavin McInnes video on WWW since last year, so here's a new one you probably haven't seen yet. This is Gavin's alter-ego (not to be confused with Alt-right) Miles McInnes, the ultimate leftie pinko SJW progressive thinker. This is his list of the top 10 leftie/snowflake/etc moments of 2016. Enjoy.



Post-script to all the lefties/snowflakes/etc who watched this by some horrible mistake. If you don't like being mocked, just wait. We NON-leftie/snowflake/etc types won! Wait till you see what happens now!

Monday, January 2, 2017

CENSORED VIDEO: Evalion responds to biased Global TV "interview"

Evalion (real name Veronica Bouchard) is a young Canadian woman -- she lives in the eastern reaches of the so-called Greater Toronto Are -- who has become famous for producing dozens of YouTube videos attacking Jews, Zionism, multiculturalism, race-mixing, anti-white racism and... you get the picture. She's saying stuff that the chattering classes, "progressives", SJWs and other snowflakes find "hateful". And what gets them is that she's a pretty white girl with a sweet little-girl voice. How can she say such awful racist things? And, oh yeah, she drops the F-bomb too.

Evalion's channel quickly became notable, gaining 16,000 subscribers within a day, and thus the object of ferocious attacks by the PC police. She started to get mass-flagged by the libtards and "anti-haters", and pretty soon had her channel terminated and her videos deleted. But fans who wisely downloaded her "offensive rants" keep reposting them, so if you want to see for yourself what all the fuss is about, search YouTube for "Evalion" or "anti-semitic" or "Jews" and eventually one of her videos will appear in the suggestions column.

Last year, around Hallowe'en, Canada's No. 3 TV network, Global TV, decided to run an interview with Evalion, who had been stopped by Canada's "border services" (= border police) on suspicion of being a "hate criminal". (Yes, voicing "hateful thoughts" is a crime in Canada. There's no First Amendment there.) According to Ms Bouchard, Global interviewed her for 40 minutes, but less than 2 minutes of what she said in the "interview" is heard in the lengthy TV report. So she made a video to fill in the blanks, so to speak. Here it is. Running time: 20:45.

UPDATE 14/1/17: THE VIDEO EMBEDDED BELOW HAS BEEN DELETED BY (((YOUTUBE))). Draw your own conslusions.



Just so you know
... Global TV began life as part of the Canwest Global media group led by (((Israel Asper))). The company was already one of the largest owners of Canadian local TV stations, when Canwest and (((Goldman Sachs))) in 2007 announced they would jointly acquire Canadian producer and broadcaster Alliance Atlantis Communications and its large stable of wide-distribution specialty channels. Following some "financial difficulties", Shaw Communications purchased the entirety of Canwest's broadcasting operations, including the portion owned by (((Goldman))). This deal was later modified to include a settlement agreement between Shaw, creditors, and the Official Ad Hoc Committee of Shareholders, led by the (((Aspers))), (((Blott Asset Management L.L.C.))) and two other hedge funds. Canwest was renamed to 2737469 Canada Inc. and ceased doing business that same date. Meanwhile, Shaw Communications reorganized Canwest into Shaw Media. Rumours that Jews control the Canadian (and American) media are, of course, groundless.

Footnote: Isn't Global TV's Farah Nasser (née Farah Khan) an eyeful? Mrs Nasser is, errr, "Muslim-Canadian", and you have to wonder if her heart is really in the shock she expressesd at Evalion's alleged anti-Semitism.

VIDEO: "Bitter Harvest", worth seeing in 2017

Coming soon to a cinema near you (if you live in the USA or Canada), Bitter Harvest is a romantic-drama film set in Ukraine at the time of The Holodomor (Ukrainian: Голодомо́р), a man-made famine in 1932 and 1933 that killed an estimated 2.5–7.5 million Ukrainians, with millions more counted in demographic estimates.

Shot on location in Ukraine, Bitter Harvest was directed by George Mendeluk, with original story and script Richard Bachynsky Hoover. The film stars Max Irons, Samantha Barks, Barry Pepper, Tamer Hassan and Terence Stamp. Inspired by actual events -- one of worst but least-known tragedies of the 20th century -- it is an intense story of adoration, respect, insubordination and survival as observed through the eyes of two young lovers struggling to survive the famine along with their Cossack grain farmer families. As Stalin advances the ambitions of the burgeoning Soviet Union, a youthful craftsman named Yuri (Max Irons) fights to survive starvation, detainment and torment to spare his childhood sweetheart Natalka (Samantha Barks) from the Holodomor. Against this tragic backdrop, Yuri escapes from a Soviet prison and joins the anti-Bolshevik resistance movement as he fights to rejoin with Natalka and proceed with the battle for a free Ukraine.



Walt recommends Bitter Harvest highly. You need to see it to understand why Ukrainians everywhere oppose Russia's plans to reoccupy their country, and why the West needs to stand with them against Russian aggression. Donald Trump please note!

Sunday, January 1, 2017

Happy New Year (II) ! 100s of "Africans" detained in Cologne

In my first post of this beautiful New Year's Day, 2017, I said I was waiting for reports of "refugee" rape rampages in Cologne (aka Köln), Germany, and other European cities, along the lines of the attacks on white women which occurred a year ago.

I didn't have to wait long. According to Associated Press, Die Polizei von Koln have detained hundreds of men "seemingly of African descent" as part of operations to prevent a repeat of the attacks seen in that city a year ago. Whether "African" means sub-Saharan African -- the real black ones -- or North African -- the Muslim Arabs -- was not made clear, but I know which way I'm betting. (See UPDATE below.)

Cologne police say the men were detained at two main train stations so that officers could question them and check their identities, to determine if they're "refugees" or asylum-seekers or failed asylum-seekers or just plain old illegal immigrants. Some revelers complained on Twitter that police appeared to be detaining people based on their appearance alone. Inspektor Katzenjammer was heard to say that they didn't have anything else to go on.

By early New Year's Day, police had received reports of two -- only two -- women being sexually assaulted in Cologne. One man was arrested. His nationality (or lack thereof) has so far not been disclosed.

UPDATE: Cologne police have now admitted that by "African" they mean, errr, NORTH African, by which they mean Arabs, by which they mean Muslims. Hundreds of people were robbed and sexually assaulted during New Year's celebrations in Cologne last year. The crimes were blamed largely on men of North African origin who had taken advantage of chaotic and crowded scenes around the city's cathedral.

Cologne Police Chief Juergen Mathies said he had instructed officers to intervene sooner this year. Of the 650 people detained for identity checks, almost all were from North African countries, he said, adding that "their characteristics were such that potential crimes could indeed be expected." Is it possible that Chief Mathies has not yet read Angela Merkel's diktat about "Willkommenskultur"?

Happy New Year! ISIS takes credit for Istanbul massacre

So, farewell then, 2016. And welcome 2017. What will the new year be like? Walt has a few predictions. Here's one. The Islamic terrorist attacks against Western civilization and any Muslims who don't agree with their extremist views will continue unabated. The Muslim civil war will continue. Two "incidents" this weekend prove me right, as usual.

Yesterday, New Year's Eve, a pair of suicide bombings minutes apart hit al-Sinak, a flea market in central Baghdad, Iraq. Minutes after the first suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden belt, a cry of "Allahu akbar!" rang out again, as a the second attacker struck amid the crowd that gathered. 28 people, mostly Shia Muslims, died. 54 were wounded.

In a statement posted by its Aaqmaq news agency, the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attacks, and confirmed that the blasts came from a pair of suicide bombers. Later on Saturday, three separate attacks in and around Baghdad killed another 8 people, including a policeman, and wounded 17. Provisional total for the day: 36 "infidels" dead, 71 wounded.

This morning at 0115 local time -- just over an hour into the New Year -- a gunman who entered the crowded Reina nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey, and opened fire, killing at least 39 people, including a policeman, and wounding 69 others. At the time of the shooting, about 600 people were inside the club, located near a bridge that crosses the Bosphorus River. The venue was popular with wealthy locals and tourists. An Israeli woman has been identified as one of the victims. Other foreign victims came from Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Lebanon and Libya.

As yet, no-one has claimed responsibility for the attack, which is reminiscent of last June's massacre of 49 people (and wounding of 53 others) at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando FL. The killer in that case was Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old "Muslim-American" security guard. In a 9-1-1 call shortly after he started shooting, Mr Mateen swore allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the ISIS/ISIL. He said the shooting was "triggered" [bad pun! Ed.] by the American killing of Abu Waheeb in Iraq the previous month. He later told a negotiator he was "out here right now" because of the American-led interventions in Iraq and in Syria, and that the negotiator should tell the United States to stop bombing ISIL.

Although no connection with ISIS has been established in the Reina killings, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has issued a statement in which he says "I vehemently condemn the terror attack in Istanbul's Ortakoy neighbourhood in the first hours of 2017." Offering his condolences for those who lost their lives, including "foreign guests", Mr Erdogan said, "Turkey continues its combat against terror and is absolutely determined to do whatever is necessary in the region to ensure its citizens safety and peace." Walt wishes the Turks good luck with that!

Walt is keeping his eye on the mojo wire for reports of rape and other Islamic New Year's celebrations from Koln, Berlin, Stockholm and/or other European cities. My prediction: Cries of "Allahu akbar!" will echo around the world for the remaining 365.5 days of 2017. Happy New Year!

UPDATE 1/1/17: AP reports that President B. Hussein Obama expressed condolences for the attack and directed his team to offer US help to Turkish authorities. Whether the Turks want American help is another matter. The White House condemned the incident calling it a "horrific terrorist attack". Notice the omission of the word "Islamic". Even now, the Soon-to-be-ex-Prez can't bring himself to call Islamic terrorism by its name.

UPDATE 2/1/17: To no-one's surprise, AP reports today that ISIS (The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) is claiming responsibility for the New Year's Eve Istanbul nightclub massacre. The ISIS-linked Aamaq News Agency said that the attack was carried out by a "heroic soldier of the caliphate who attacked the most famous nightclub where Christians were celebrating their pagan feast."

It said the man opened fire from an automatic rifle and also detonated hand grenades in "revenge for God's religion and in response to the orders" of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. They went on to describe Turkey as "the servant of the cross" and suggested the attack was in retaliation for Turkish military offensives against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.